The Strokes will release their first album in 6 years this summer, titled ‘Reality Awaits’. What we don’t have to wait for is to hear what is already the first single of this new stage, the good vibes ‘Going Shopping’.
The unreleased song has been received in cassette form by 100 random fans of the band, after registering on the website that the band unveiled a few days ago. Of course, it is now available in digital format. Everywhere.
It didn’t take long for the fandom of the New York band to spread the content of the cassettes, provoking reactions of all kinds regarding the sound of the new song. This includes distorted guitars, one in each headphone, and eighties keyboards.
However, what stands out the most is the use of autotune by Julian Casablancas. He is used to this tool thanks to his work with The Voidz and Daft Punk, but it is not as common for him to use it with The Strokes. This is already causing very different reactions on the networks, with some users describing the song as a “bop” and others not even understanding why Casablancas would do this.
In the rest of ‘Going Shopping’, Casablancas claims to want to be “a zombie” and “a 7-foot starfish” while singing about going to the countryside or “shopping.” Both the melody and the lyrics show the band with a much more relaxed attitude than usual. At the same time, they premiered the song live in the second show they performed this week in San Francisco.
Although there is no official confirmation, it was known that the band had performed several successful sessions with Rick Rubin since 2022, who also produced ‘The New Abnormal’. Therefore, it is possible that ‘Going Shopping’ is the first sample that the public receives from those sessions. We will have to wait to see if all, or just a part, of ‘Reality Awaits’ is produced by Rubin.
Live debut of the new Strokes single “Going Shopping”
it’s a bop folks pic.twitter.com/U58kFy7eMy
— Ian Grant (@ian__grant) April 7, 2026
— julesbianfr (@JulesbianFR) April 6, 2026
